Review of Forearm Fulcrum Paddle

So with part of the $40 I won from winning the Lake Huron race, I bought these Forearm Fulcrum Paddles.  They were reviewed in USMS Masters Magazine as being more intended for beginners to learn proper hand/wrist orientation, but also pretty good for advanced swimmers to drill with.  I'm here to tell you that this piece of equipment is pure crap.  First of all the paddles came with no instructions whatsoever.  No picture, no written instructions, just the paddles in a bag.  Lame.  So I tried to put them on using what I thought was correct logic.  I noticed that the hole for the forearm is too small.  I have relatively large forearms so the only possible way I could wear the fulcrum paddle was to position it as far up my forearm as possible without cutting my circulation off.  Here's how far I could get it up:

This picture is actually from the Finis Blog (the makers of the paddle).  Notice that the guy who is wearing it has very girly forearms.  Mine fill the hole so much that I can't fit it any further up my arm.  So I end up not getting my hand all the way in on the other side.   This next picture is the proper way it should be held.....

Notice that there is still plenty of room for this very skinny swimmer.  He probably has a pencil neck too.

At any rate.  When I swam with this thing it hurt.  Well after visiting the Finis website, come to find out I'm holding the stupid thing wrong.  I was doing it like the INCORRECT PICTURE ABOVE.  So after trying it further holding it correctly, (See picture to the right) it doesn't hurt AS MUCH.  But still forces my hand to go down at an angle which is really weird when you push off from the wall cause it takes longer to surface.  I just thought the paddles were plain goofy.  Sure it's nice to make sure your hand is pulling back properly, but I don't think the paddles are something you would want to use as a drill.  Their probably better for correcting some REALLY BAD HABITS that have already formed by new swimmers.  Advanced swimmers most likely don't have the poor hand position that these paddles claim to fix.  So I'm going to try to sell them on Ebay as they really aren't conducive to my training at all.

Hopefully I don't lose too much money on them.  Sucker!